August Goal Check-In and 3 for September 2017

August Goal Check-In and 3 for September 2017

Hello there!

I hope you’re having an awesome long weekend so far. I can’t believe it’s goal check-in time again, and to be honest, I nearly postponed this one until next Monday because of my lack of progress on one of the goals which you’ll read about in a second. After giving it a bit of thought, I decided to do it anyway because honesty is something I value a LOT. With that as the preface, I suppose we should just get this August goal check-in under way!

Here’s how the month went down:

1. Finish the Eat Spin Run Repeat Sugar Detox – D-…. and I will explain.

Ok – so that whole lack of progress thing? This is what I’m talking about. You know how they say that you should under promise and over deliver? Yep, definitely didn’t do that here. I’ve shared recently that the past couple of weeks have been wrought with technical issues, but that wasn’t the only thing in the way. In retrospect, I realize that I shouldn’t have committed myself to this effort in August, especially since it was the same month as so many other things including a lot of changes at work, travel, weekends away, visitors in town, social commitments and Seawheeze.

On Friday morning, I waffled on the phone back and forth with one of my besties from work about how I felt torn. On one hand, I really, really want to get this resource made for you guys. It’s been a request for a long time, I’ve asked for your feedback on a few occasions, and I see reducing sugar in our daily diet as a change that can bring about so many fantastic results. Because of all this, I told her I felt like I was letting readers down by failing to hit my self-imposed deadline.

Then on the other hand, the realist in me knew that of all the times of the year, summer is the season I love the most. It’s the best time to be outside, unplugged and not stressed about work and deadlines. I live in what I’d consider one of the most beautiful cities with mountains and the ocean – two of my favourite things – so nearby. As I learn more about how important it is to nourish my soul and show myself some compassion, the best friend in me says that it’s ok. My heart was pulling me in other directions this past month, and I’ve decided I’m content with that.

So, I’m recommitting to this one, but pushing out my timeline in order for it to be the best it can be. After all, the last thing I’d want to give you is a half-baked attempt at something I don’t feel super proud of. Watch this space. 😉

2. Have the best 29th birthday/lululemon Seawheeze weekend yet – A+

And it WAS! As I said in my Seawheeze half marathon recap, the race weekend just gets better every year. I always feel like it’s a great big party with thousands of people to celebrate and sweat with, and this was no exception.

For the past couple of years around my birthday/Seawheeze weekend (which always fall around the same time), I find myself with these immense, overwhelming feelings of gratitude and awe. We all have our days that are less awesome than others, and if you’d asked me years ago about where I’d be at 29, there are SO many things I figured I’d have figured out by now. But at the same time, I feel so lucky to have landed where I’m at. It sounds ridiculously cheesy, but that overwhelming feeling came up several times along the race course this year, and I’ll blame the endorphins, but it nearly had me wanting to cry!

I think I have an over-the-top sense of attachment to this particular race that might even seem excessive to some. But running the first Seawheeze was the trigger that set off a whole cascade of events, which led to me moving here, changing jobs, and landing at lululemon 6 years later. The last part was never my intention, but I guess some things are just meant to be – and again, I wouldn’t want it any other way.

As far as the Seawheeze weekend itself goes, it always brings together the fine human beings here in Vancouver that I’d consider my people – friends from work, past co-workers, friends from Vega (my longest blog/brand partnership), blog readers + fellow bloggers, and amazing souls from other health and wellness circles I hang around in. It’s a pretty special thing, and with 6 years in the books, I hope the tradition continues for many more.

3. Get 8 hours of sleep per night – C+

Yikes – ok, didn’t do so hot on this one. Weekends were A+++, but weekdays were not. Previous goal check-ins have been full of As and A+’s, but as you can see, life isn’t always that way! I probably averaged closer to 6.5 or 7 hours per night, and I’m not proud of it. Much of this is for the same reasons I listed above – social events that were totally worth sacrificing the sleep for, passion projects, unexpected blog problems, and just life in general. It happens.

On the bright side however, I think my sleep quality has drastically improved. As I said I would in August, I restocked on Four Sigmatic Reishi Mushroom Elixir (more about it here), my lifesaver when it comes to deepening sleep and getting more relaxed. I’ve also been sleeping with my apartment at a cooler temperature (thank goodness for portable air conditioning), and getting a lot more use out of my Saje Aromabreeze diffuser. Both of these have made a massive difference.

Having multiple side passions is wonderful, but it also means they can consume time that should probably be spent resting! Admittedly, I do feel a bit behind at the moment. This is something I’m planning to continue working on in September as I wrap up some projects and figure out how to streamline workflows.

(Quick reminder: For those of you in the US, you can buy elixirs directly from Four Sigmatic’s website or from iHerb. For those of you in Canada, I highly recommend ordering via Raw Elementsin order to avoid customs fees. The code ESR10 will get you 10% off. Shrooms for everyone!)

3 goals for September 2017

Moving along, even though I’m not in school any more and haven’t been for a long time, September always feels like a bit of a resetting time. With that theme in mind, these are the things I’m working on this month:

Do a thorough decluttering of my apartment

Over the course of summer I’ve been a little less organized than normal, and this is partly to do with being out and about more often. You know when you come back from a hike and the last thing you feel like doing is unpacking every last thing from your bag because you might go do another one next weekend? Yeah, there are lots of partially packed bags in my laundry room right now. In addition, a few of my kitchen cupboards look like a bomb went off inside and my closet definitely needs attention too. I think this physical/spatial disorganization is partially why I’ve been feeling a little flustered lately, so I’m really motivated and excited to get on top of it.

The plan of attack is this: I’ve set aside 4 chunks of time in my calendar this month to tackle 4 areas: kitchen (2 time blocks), laundry room (1 block) and closet (1 block). I’ll queue up some podcasts, gather up a bunch of labels, markers, donation bags, bin bags, and some snacks to keep me going (because projects like this are much more fun with snacks) and have a few cleaning parties. #adulting. 😝

Make the most of every moment in Hawaii

I’ve talked a little bit about this lately, but it hasn’t quite set in that in a couple of weeks I’ll be off to a destination I’ve dreamed of visiting since I was little. It seems like everyone I’ve met out here has been to Hawaii multiple times, and maybe that’s because it’s a little closer to Vancouver than Waterloo where I used to live. I can’t put into words how excited I am to finally take a proper vacation. I’m talking one with a beach, sunshine, and a totally wide open week that I can fill however I want. (And lots of poke and pineapple too, of course!) My plan is to disconnect and be as into every experience as I possibly can, and that includes taking a surf lesson and trying SNUBA – both of which I’ve never done before but am pumped to check out.

Source: Pinterest

Get a new recipe search up and running

This has been another back-end blog thing that’s been keeping me busy over the past couple of months. You’ve probably noticed that my recipes within posts are in a different format these days (one of the things that seems to have gone awry as of last week – again, working on it), and that’s just one piece of a larger site optimization puzzle my developer and I are in the midst of. Soon you won’t have to use my existing recipe search (which is uuuuuuuuber slow and I’m sorry about that!) and instead you’ll have one that allows you to find what you’re looking for much faster. Nobody wants to have to wait for a page to load when they’re hungry!

Alright, that’s all for me! Now I’d love to hear what you’re working on this month, and how August went for you. Boast about your wins, no matter how small!And if you have any big fails, please share those – I like to know there are other real human beings out there who fall short of their self-imposed expectations too. 😉 Enjoy the rest of your (non)Labour Day!

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My name is Angela and I've got a fiery passion for turning fresh, healthy ingredients into delicious mouth-watering meals. I love watermelon, green smoothies, and running around Vancouver, the city I'm proud to call home.

3 Comments

Love your post today. Which island will you visit? They are all beautiful. I don’t set monthly goals but enjoy reading yours. I tell myself every week that I will work on my core. As you age (54) things fall apart quickly. I would love to see some core exercises on your blog. Thank you.

Thanks Tracy! I’ll be heading to Maui, thanks to the recommendation of so many friends I know who have done the same. That said, I’m confident it won’t be my last trip to Hawaii and would love to see the other islands as well. Having been so inspired by the Ironman Kona World Championships back when I was doing triathlons, I think it would be so fun to see the Big Island and perhaps volunteer at the race in Kona one day. 🙂 Regarding your core strength focus, I can absolutely do a post on this! It’ll likely be just after I get back, but am going to pencil it in because you’re not the only one who has asked for it. Thank you so much for the suggestion. I hope you had a great long weekend!